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Can I Join Your Club? A guest post from John Kelly

I run a club twice a week – it’s a library club, in which we read, and do a million book related activities. So, when I read Can I Join Your Club? by John Kelly and illustrated by Steph Laberis, it resonated in so many ways. This is a brilliant picturebook about inclusivity, making friends, and being part of a group. It’s also wonderfully humorous. Bold, positive and topical – this is definitely a book I’ll be using in my club. Author John Kelly has very kindly written his thoughts on the book for MinervaReads.

We puny human beings are sociable animals. We want to like and to be liked. And don’t we just LOVE IT if someone likes the same things we do?

This means we are terribly keen on creating clubs. We have clubs for EVERYTHING! Stamp collecting, sky-diving, and even octopus appreciation (yes, I checked). Now while stamps do need collecting, skies need diving out of, and octopuses do need appreciating, when you form a club with people in it, someone else therefore isn’t. Those are the people who – shock horror – aren’t like you!

Imagine that!

Can I Join Your Club? tries to show children (and any adult who is paying attention) that your friends don’t have to look like you, do what you do, or even like the things you do.

This shouldn’t really need saying. But it’s not at all unusual to hear grown-ups who are completely unable to connect with each other because of their differences. Examples include, support of football team, fashion sense, income, political or religious views, and even something as ludicrously trivial as phone operating system! (IOS and Android fans – you know who you are.)

We puny humans have a tendency to trust those who are just like us (i.e. they’re jolly keen on stamps, jumping out of planes or cephalopods), and mistrust those who are not. In everyday language this translates into: ‘You can’t be my friend because you don’t like EXACTLY the same music as I do!’

There aren’t many advantages to being old and wizened (like me). But one of the few is in realising that your motley collection of best friends are completely unlike you in almost every respect. They don’t share your tastes in food, music, politics, religion, or octopus appreciation. Often they are the very opposite of you. But you love them, and they love you all the same – and are always there for you.

They like you, not the things you like.

The secret to real friendship is in wanting to like others and be liked by them in return. The best clubs are always those full of people who aren’t anything like you at all.

So if you’re a child (or an adult) and looking for someone to be in ‘your club’, then find someone you don’t agree with about something really important. Spend some time getting to know them, and they may just surprise you by becoming your best friend.

With thanks to John Kelly. Can I Join Your Club? is out now. Duck wants to join a club. But he can’t join Lion Club unless he can roar, or Elephant Club unless he can trumpet, and Duck can only quack. In the end, duck sets up a new club, one in which everyone can join. And you can join the club here.